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April 7, 2009

Garden programs bloom in CW

The season is blossoming with engaging garden programs throughout Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. Specialized tours are led by Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area landscape volunteers who help guests explore the beauty of the colonial gardens.

This spring guests have the opportunity to discover the ornate gardens of gentility, learn about the process of re-creating colonial gardens through archaeological evidence and ask questions to the Historic Area gardeners.

Meet with landscape volunteers on the Meet the Gardener tour. Guests may ask questions and learn about period plants and their care in a Historic Area garden. The program is at 10:30 a.m. Mondays and Thursdays through June 11.

Gardens of Gentility is an hour-long walking tour comparing and contrasting the presentation of gentility and status in three different gardens located in the Palace Green area. The tour begins at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Fridays through June 12.

Learn about archaeological and historical documentation used in re-creating Colonial Williamsburg’s gardens on the walking tour, Through the Garden Gate. This hour-long tour starts at 9:30 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays through June 13.

A Colonial Williamsburg admission ticket or Good Neighbor Card provides access to enjoy these programs. Reservations are required. Space is limited.

Colonial Williamsburg welcomes the Williamsburg Garden Club in celebrating the splendor of the Historic Area’s remarkable gardens and landscapes during a special Garden Day on April 21. The day features an escorted walking tour of the gardens in Colonial Williamsburg. The gardens visited on the tour range from the historic colonial revival garden to the contemporary ornamental garden with perennial and shrub borders. Guests will discover landscape details, plant selection, color themes and succession planting. The tour explores the gardens of the Lightfoot House, Lightfoot Tenement, the Williamsburg Inn and The Spa of Colonial Williamsburg.

Established in 1926, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is the not-for-profit educational institution that preserves and operates the restored 18th-century Revolutionary capital of Virginia as a town-sized living history museum, telling the inspirational stories of our nation’s founding men and women. Within the restored and reconstructed buildings, historic interpreters, attired as colonial men and women from slaves to shopkeepers to soldiers, relate stories of colonial Virginia society and culture – stories of our journey to become Americans – while historic trades people research, demonstrate and preserve the 18th-century world of work and industry. As Colonial Williamsburg interprets life in the time of the American Revolution guests interact with history through “Revolutionary City®” – a dramatic live street theater presentation.

Williamsburg is located in Virginia’s Tidewater region, 20 minutes from Newport News, within an hour’s drive of Richmond and Norfolk, and 150 miles south of Washington, D.C., off Interstate 64. For more information about Colonial Williamsburg, call 1-800-HISTORY or visit Colonial Williamsburg’s Web site at www.history.org.